The applicant has been in the business of providing after market improvements to farm combines used to harvest wheat and other grains. A farm combine harvest apparatus has been operable with a threshing reel assembly to cut crops, such as wheat, oats, barley, rye, corn, and other edible crops and having the same moved centrally by an auger assembly and then upwardly by a feeder chain assembly to a threshing cylinder in a material receiving housing.
The applicant's prior invention, as noted in U.S. Pat. No. 3,967,719 entitled "Combine Conveyor Means", issued Jul. 6, 1976, discloses a slat means 50 in FIG. 3 which is disclosed in this application in FIG. 2 as a force feed slat assembly 28. The force feed slat elongated assembly is used to force grain upwardly and into the threshing cylinder.
As the force feed slat assemblies clear the grain, the slat is going straight up and grain and straw cannot follow it and, thus, prevents back feeding and stopping the threshing cylinder from further operation.
At the present time, numerous farming operations have changed the use of the prior combine harvester apparatus into utilizing a grain stripper combine harvester apparatus which strips the grain material, such as wheat, barley, rice, grasses, peas, beans, and all edible crops, and the straw and stalk are left standing.
The grain stripper combine harvester apparatus uses rows of plastic combs or fingers on an eight bladed rotor similar to the prior art threshing assembly but operates not to cut the entire straw and grain attached thereto but to remove the grain therefrom. This grain is then conveyed into an auger assembly into a feeder chain assembly which, in turn, conveys the grain upwardly into a threshing cylinder.
In this new method of harvesting, it is found that the applicant's prior invention (U.S. Pat. No. 3,967,719) needs modification and improvement in order to properly move the harvested grain heads in the feeder chain assembly upwardly into the threshing cylinder in the grain stripper combine harvester apparatus.
Therefore, the invention herein may seem to be a slight improvement over the applicant's prior art patent but has proven to be extremely necessary in order to convey the stripped grain heads utilizing the grain stripper combine harvester apparatus.